frazil

From Canadian French frasil, frazil, fraisil, from French fraisil (“coal cinders”), from Old French faisil.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfræzəl/, /ˈfreɪzəl/, /-zɪl/
• Rhymes: -æzəl

frazil (countable and uncountable, plural frazils)

1. (Canada, US) A collection of stray ice crystals that form in fast-moving water.
   • 1888 March 17th, The Montreal Gazette, Cent.:

     It has been suggested that it may be due to the accumulation of frazil or anchor-ice.

   • 1893 February 9th, The Youth’s Companion, Boston: Perry Mason & Co., page 71/4:

     The greater the surface of the swift open water, the greater the quantity of frazil made in a minute, hour, or day. Every open rapid is, in ‘zero weather’, a frazil-factory.

   • 2020, David Farrier, “The Library of Babel”, in Footprints, 4th Estate, →ISBN:

     Following currents that flow across the Bering and Chukchi shelves, microplastics from the Pacific that arrive in Arctic waters are gathered up by the tiny crystals that clump together to form ‘frazil’ (the gloss of soft ice that forms on the surface of the water) and then are bound into the sea ice.

• ice

• frazil ice

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Frazil”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume IV (F–G), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 519, column 1.
• “frazil”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

frazil (plural frazils)

1. Alternative form of farasola.